89 celica surging....(3s-fe)

[JesusJones]

So here's the scoop. My gf's celica has been sitting for about 1 year wild we did various things to it(belts,clutch,bondo,paint) And now there seems to be a surging when you are going up from 1250-3000 rpm, after 3k it seems to go away.

Kinda like a train going chugga chugga. This isn't exactly a serious problem where any person would say, "WTH is wrong with this car" but I feel it. And I don't think it was there before. And no car I've driven feels like that. There might also be a slight loss in power and low end torque.

We checked out the timing and it was 15 degrees off (about a -5) we set it back to 10. It seemed better. But I still notice the slight surging effect. So I would like to know if any one has an idea as to what might be causing this?? The few things I found from google said it might be the MAF sensor. But this car is an 89, so that doesn't really fit the bill.

Thanks for any help or suggestion,
Andrew

[Murgatroy]

The 3SFE has a flapper style AFM. It serves a similar purpose to the MAF.

Did you do the regular tune up things? Cap, rotor, wires, plugs? Air filter?

My 3SFE had idle issues, which was the IAT. It would idle high, but a blip of the throttle would idle it right down.

You could try upping the timing a bit, I run 15* with slight power increases, see if that helps the power a bit as well.

[JesusJones]

She actually bought a K&N thing off ebay. So the air filter is good.

The rotor was rather poor. So I replaced that. Helped maybe a touch.

The thing is.....I remember it having more torque even with all the original parts in it. The only thing I can think of that might of changed would be the ignition timing or maybe even the cam timing.

She did buy the car used and the previous owner might have changed the ignition timing. And now it's set back to stock so maybe that is it. What kind of gains would I expect??

Perhaps somebody could also tell me how much pull your car has in 3rd gear going 60km/h. Kinda hard to explain I know. But at full throttle trying to gain speed from 60km/h it's just so damn slow. No feeling at all of being sucked into your seat. And it's just not how I remember this car being. Am I crazy? Or should I continue to try and see what is going on....?

I'm starting to think that maybe my Gf's dad might have fudged up the cam timing just slightly. You think that might be causing something like this?

Thanks,
Andrew

[JesusJones]

The cam timing was retarded.

I advanced it one tooth and now it is the way I remember it being. The timing is currently set to 10 but I might try upping it to 15 to see if it gets any ballsier.